The Arabic Language

Q
74/37–8; the text has 
fa-man 
instead 
of the canonical reading 
li-man
]. (
fa-kitābu llāhi taʿālā ḥayātun ʿinda kulli mawtin 
wa-nūrun ʿinda kulli ḏ̣ulmatin wa-ʿilmun ʿinda kulli jahlin, fa-mā taraka llāhu li-l-ʿibādi 
baʿda l-kitābi wa-r-rasūli ḥujjatan wa-qāla ʿazza wa-jalla ‘li-yahlika man halaka ʿan bayyi-
natin, wa-yaḥyā man ḥayya ʿan bayyinatin wa-ʾinna llāha la-samīʿun ʿalīm’ fa-fakkir ʾamīra 
l-muʾminīna fī qawli llāhi taʿālā ‘fa-man šāʾa minkum ʾan yataqaddama ʾaw yataʾaḫḫara 
kullu nafsin bi-mā kasabat rahīna’
). (Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, 
Risāla fī l-qadar
, ed. ʿAmāra, 
Rasāʾil 
fī l-ʿadl wa-t-tawḥīd, 
Beirut, 1987, p. 113)
The tradition of caliphal sponsorship of book-writing that was initiated by the 
ʾUmayyad caliphs was continued under the ʿAbbāsid dynasty. At the request of 
some of the caliphs, books were composed, mostly by foreigners, that were to 
acquaint the intellectual elite with the achievements of other cultures. Scholars 
such as the Persian Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. ±142/759), a near-contemporary of ʿAbd 
al-Ḥamīd, produced literary translations from Pahlavi. His most famous transla-
tion was that of the Indian fables of 
Kalīla wa-Dimna
, but he also composed new 
original treatises, such as the 
Kitāb al-ʾadab al-kabīr
and the 
Risāla fī ṣ-ṣaḥāba
. These 
treatises were mostly concerned with court etiquette and the behavioural code in 
the relations between rulers and ruled.
Because of the scarcity of preserved texts from the ʾUmayyad period, it is 
difficult to pinpoint the exact model for the style of early ʿAbbāsid writings. The 
language of the 
Qurʾān
gained in influence during the ʿAbbāsid period, but it 

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The Development of Classical Arabic 
77
cannot be regarded as a direct model for the prose style. Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s work 
abounds with antithetic statements and parallelisms formulated in a syntacti
-
cally complicated language, full of participles and verbal nouns, which, however, 
always remains lucid and easy to follow, as in the following fragment:
Know that the receiver of praise is as someone who praises himself. It is fitting that 
a man’s love of praise should induce him to reject it, since the one who rejects it is 
praised, but the one who accepts it is blamed. (
wa-ʿlam ʾanna qābila l-madḥi ka-mādiḥi 
nafsihi, wa-l-marʾu jadīrun ʾan yakūna ḥubbuhu l-madḥa huwa llaḏī yaḥmiluhu ʿalā 
raddihi, fa-ʾinna r-rādda lahu maḥmūdun, wa-l-qābila lahu maʿībun
). (Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, 
Kitāb al-ʾadab al-kabīr
, ed. Beirut, 1964, p. 69)
The ʾUmayyad trend of commissioning translations of scientific writings reached 
its apogee under the ʿAbbāsid caliphs. The Arabic translations of (Syriac versions 
of) Greek writings that were produced before al-Maʾmūn’s establishment of the 
Bayt al-Ḥikma
, were written in a clumsy style that betrays its Greek origin in every 
line. One example from a translation of Hippocrates’ 
On the Nature of Man
should 
suffice (an attempt has been made to imitate the style in English!):
When spring comes, it is necessary to add to the drinking, and it must be broken 
with water, and you must cut down bit by bit on food, and you must choose of it that 
which is less nourishing and fresher and you must adopt instead of the use of much 
bread the use of much barley meal. (
wa-ʾiḏā jāʾa r-rabīʿ fa-yanbaġī ʾan yuzād fī š-šarāb 
wa-yuksar bi-l-māʾ wa-tanquṣ min aṭ-ṭaʿām qalīlan qalīlan wa-taḫtār minhu mā huwa ʾaqall